


Spy

by Snegurochka



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-08
Updated: 2005-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:54:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snegurochka/pseuds/Snegurochka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four snapshots – Snape, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew – explore the question lurking in the heart of every HP fan (or maybe just me): why did Pettigrew turn traitor in the First War, why did Black and Lupin suspect each other, and what might Snape have had to do with any of it?</p><p>4,000 words. February 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spy

**   
I.   
**

He comes to me on Wednesdays. Hidden under a cloak, so as not to be seen or recognised, he slips into the grimy back alley behind the flat I rent and waits with bated breath (or so I like to think) for me to let him in.

It could not be more disgusting, the way we meet. The flat is in a run-down tenement in the very heart of the sort of district that evokes images of coal mines from centuries past, of boys with blackened faces and torn coveralls, of girls with wailing infants in each arm and drunken lovers collapsed on the stairs. It smells of smoke and oil and unwashed basins. It reeks of adultery and discarded chicken broth and unplanned pregnancies. It overpowers me with its stale air and filthy banisters and creaking wooden planks. It is sin incarnate.

The lone mattress emits a puff of ash when it is disturbed, so we usually avoid it.

It is not love, what we have, what we do  it is not romance, and it is definitely not friendship. How could it be, in this shit-hole? And make no mistake: this is no great meeting of minds, either. We fuck. That is all. I rent this flat in order to remain invisible to the Death Eaters when I need to be, and he comes here on Wednesdays, never flinching from my gaze, never recoiling from my touch, never admitting when I get too rough. He wants me that way; I am the only one who recognises him for what he is  a Dark, foul, evil creature disguised as a mild-mannered intellectual. What rubbish.

I admit to being fooled at first, like the rest of them, but he surprised me, I will give him that. The boring bookworm, the pussy Prefect who never stood up to anyone in his life comes begging for it from _me_ of all people  knowing that I do not play nice, that I do not buy dinner first, that I do not send flowers. And that is how he wants me.

He wants me to break him  or to try, at least, but he knows that I will not be able to, because no one ever has. Nothing ever has. He has a core of steel. I understand that about him; the others do not, cannot. And so it is me he comes to when he wants a fuck. Steel on steel.

I do not need him. I most certainly do not love him. I barely even like him. But every week he leaves his clothes in a tangle at the door and presses his cheek, his palms, his stomach into the cold brick wall of that room and closes his eyes, and it would take more will power than I have to turn him away. Instead, I slip behind him, biting at his neck and smothering him with my weight until blood appears on that cheek from the friction of the wall. He never stays long; only long enough to get what he came for  sometimes two, three, four times over if he is lucky. If I am lucky. We are twenty years old, for god's sake  we could fuck for years without a break were there not an inconvenient war to attend to  were there not seeds of revolution to be sown.

But I have to be careful; the first time I mentioned Black he spit in my face and almost did not come back the next week. But he did. After that I began to understand that he will always come back, that I do not need him but that he needs me  like a gutter needs a grate, to keep the pure of the world from stepping in it.

Later, I figured out that he barely required a nudge in that direction before he came to believe it whole-heartedly; he had wanted to believe it all along. He had never trusted Black, not after the night his yellow werewolf eyes and iron claws nearly tore my heart clear out of my paralysed body. He just needed me to tell him he was right. If anyone has ever deserved life in Azkaban it is Black, and he agrees. I've made sure he agrees.

Now, when he asks me about Black, all I need to do is nod solemnly, taking a deep drag on my cigarette and not offering it to him. He watches me with that animal stare and tells me he despises me, but I remind him not to lie to a Legilimens, and also, quite sensibly I think, that if he must hate anyone that desperately, it really should be his traitorous best friend, not me.

I do not tell him who it really is. I do not tell him that I do not know who it really is. Maybe it is Black after all, who can tell? The Dark Lord stopped informing me of such things around the time I started showing up in this collapsing shanty on Wednesday nights, with my cock in hand and honey on my tongue.

I relish in his distrust of Black, who never deserved his loyalty, his friendship, his _love_ in the first place. I will bring that man down if it is the last thing I do, and he is the only one who can help me do it. The world needs to be saved from blackened souls like his Gryffindor roommate, from such amoral, murderous swine, from that lying heathen. If it must be me, so be it.

I will save us.

* * *

  
**   
II.   
**

He goes to him on Wednesdays. In that cloak he thinks I don't know about, the one with the over-large hood that makes him look like a fucking monk, the one that he keeps at the bottom of his trunk upstairs, just for this purpose, he slips out the door and down the street before I can ask him where he's going  why he's going. Where could he possibly have to go, in times like these, that's so fucking secret? It's the middle of a war, for god's sake! What kind of soldier sneaks off in the middle of a fucking war and doesn't tell anyone where the hell he's going?

I knew it had to be either about sex or treason; I never dreamed it would be both.

I found out, though  oh yeah, I bloody well found out. Nobody keeps secrets from Sirius Black, and that's for damned sure. I know what they do, because I've followed him  I've seen it. In that nasty, filthy shack of theirs, with goddamned Muggle hookers standing around in their red leather skirts and their peroxide hair, I've seen it I know how to stay invisible when I need to. They whisper. They lock the door. They oh, I'm going to be sick they get naked. Then, they they by holy Merlin, I will never believe this even if I watch it a million times _they fuck_.

I almost went home and put a rope around my neck that night, after I followed him, after I saw it. I'm not even kidding  I almost did it, but Prongs came in then and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing, so I told him. He didn't believe me. _"Moony isn't a spy!"_ He shook his head. _"Come on, mate, we've got bigger problems to worry about, with all this business about Harry and that Prophecy, all right? Moony can fuck whoever he wants, no matter how revolting. I gotta say, though, mate, I wish you hadn't followed him  that's something he was right to keep secret. Ugh!"_

He even laughed when he told Lily. But she didn't laugh, not at all.

_"Tell Albus,"_ she whispered to me later that night, when Prongs was on duty. Pulling the sheets up over her breasts, she sat up and looked at me, gave me that _look_ she has, that one that knocks me down every time. Oh man, those eyes of hers I couldn't say no to those eyes if I tried; that's how we got into this mess in the first place. _"Please, baby, tell him what you know,"_ she insisted, running a finger down my chest.

But I didn't  how could I? He's my best friend. He must have a reason; there must be some explanation. And anyway, she doesn't get it, you know  that there's only so many best friends you can fuck over in the course of a lifetime, and I've already exhausted my share by doing this to James.

But I can't tell her that.

If I told her that, if I ever admitted to her that we shouldn't do what we do, that it was a mistake the first time and has been a mistake  an unbelievably hot, fucking amazing mistake  every time since, she'd go crazy. She's too into me at this point; I fucked up and let her get attached. If I dropped her now she'd tell James or Dumbledore or fucking Moody  that's all I need, Moody on my arse for this  and everything would go straight to hell.

No, I can't tell her those things. I can't tell Prongs the other things. And Moony _fuck_.

I just wish I understood. I used to understand him, or at least I thought I did. I used to know him better than I knew myself, or at least I thought I did. But _Snape?_ Of all the bloody twat holes in all the goddamned world I will never understand how the fuck this happened. Shit, I would have fucked him myself if I'd known he was that hard up, but he never asked me to. Maybe that's what pisses me off so much.

Some monk he turned out to be, dammit, always turning me down and muttering about _friendship_ oh yeah, nice one, Remus. Turning _me_ down and then going off to let that greasy arsehole _Snivellus_ suck his cock, flip him over and fuck him? I just wish I understood what the hell he's thinking, I really do. But it can't be Imperius, or Dumbledore would know, right?

No, Moony's chosen to do this, chosen to fuck us all over like this, chosen to turn traitor along with the Death Eaters' number one arsehole  no matter what Dumbledore says about that cocksucker, I know what he really is. There's no _way_ he's on our side, and now he's got his claws into Moony.

Where the hell did I put that rope?

_"He thinks you've chosen me,"_ I tell James. _"He'll get it out of me; he'll find a way. Use Peter  please, Prongs! Listen to me"_ I've begged him so many times now, I think it might actually work. He still doesn't want to believe me, but he can't deny the evidence. What the hell else would Remus be doing with Snape, if not helping the bloody Death Eaters? He's gone bad, that's the only explanation, so Wormtail's the best choice now. Moony would never suspect it. He and Snape can bloody well torture me all they want, looking for that Fidelius, and meanwhile James and Lily will be safe. And Harry. I have to keep Harry safe.

It's all coming down to me, you know. I'm the only one who knows the truth; I'm the only one who can convince Prongs that no one in their right mind would go looking for the Fidelius from Peter; I'm the only one Lily trusts; I'm the only one who sees right through that double-crossing bastard, Snape. It's up to me now, to save little Harry, to make sure Voldemort doesn't find him, to make sure we win this war, despite Moony's lying fucking efforts to prevent that. It's all up to me.

I will save us.

* * *

  
  
**III.**   


I go to him on Wednesdays. I don't know why, and I certainly don't remember how it started. Maybe it was back at school, when I'd catch him looking at me all those times he shouldn't have been  when Padfoot and Prongs would have ripped his throat out if they'd noticed. But they didn't, of course. Notice. And they definitely didn't notice that I looked back.

I suppose that makes it sound like love or some such thing? Hardly. It's a physical need, borne of the total lack of anything better to do in this useless war, when Albus won't let me out to do a goddamned thing to help, convinced as he is that the Death Eaters are trying to gather the werewolves  convinced as he is that I would let myself be gathered.

So I bide my time with sex. Is this surprising? Maybe so. James and Sirius did all the fucking back at school; Peter and I only got to watch. Not literally, of course  figuratively. Well, now it's my turn, and anyway, he's strangely addictive. I don't love him  did I mention that? I don't love anyone. He doesn't hold me or tell me everything will be all right, or make me forget that Sirius has taken to disappearing for days at a time only to return smelling like stale dog and back-alley palm-greasing.

No, we fuck, that's all. He covers me with darkness and kills me a little bit each time because I ask him to, and every week I go back, because he's the only one who will give me what I want.

I loathe him. I need him.

He presses into my back and leans over my shoulder, his breath hot in my ear  _Scream for me, werewolf_  and I do, because refusing would take more will power than I have, and I hate it but I do it, because I am Darker than they think I am, Darker than I thought I was; I am carnal and beastly and I can't get enough of him, shoving me against that stone wall and raking his fingernails down my back until I bleed. I would die that way if I could, and die happy.

Try explaining that to your best friends. Impossible.

And so, I have no choice but to go in secret  to put on that cloak, the dark brown one with the hood, and steal away to the small, stained flat that has never seen sun or known joy, and if they ask me where I was I tell them I went out to get supplies. I'll bring home a paper bag filled with bread and eggs and milk, to keep from becoming a complete liar.

He isn't redemption, or escape, or a reprieve from the constant state of war that surrounds me. He _is_ that war. But if I let him fuck me this way, there's another hour in my life where I don't have to think about Sirius fucking us all the other way. I should go to Albus. I should tell someone. But I convince myself it's all right, that it's not really Sirius who's betrayed us all.

Oh, the lies we tell ourselves.

Of course it's Sirius  who else could it be? I ask on Wednesdays I ask him about it. He's still in with the other side, he knows these things, and he nods. _"Black,"_ he'll hiss, nodding and nodding, in that slow, hypnotic way of his. Then he'll toss his cigarette butt out the window and grab me again, roughly and perfectly.

He always makes sure I don't go home with marks, though. If I bleed, if the wall cuts me or his fingernails scrape too deeply into my skin during those long seconds when he doesn't know he's doing it, he'll pause at the door afterwards and look me over, touching those fingers to my face, whispering spells I don't know, and the blood will stop. Sometimes I wish it wouldn't.

_"Black" _

If a pool of blood would just come and wash us all away, a pool of blood that's seeped out of my body from the heart that my best friend has stamped to dust, maybe this whole insane charade wouldn't seem so useless. Maybe then I wouldn't have to creep back to headquarters with my shopping bag and pretend I don't know that Padfoot is capable of bringing about the destruction of the entire Wizarding world. It sounds dramatic, but there you have it. That's what this all comes down to.

No, I have to go to Albus; I'm the only one who can. I have to swallow my pride and admit I've been sleeping with the one person my friends will never, ever forgive me for sleeping with. I have to admit that I know who the mole is, that I have inside information from the Death Eaters because I let one of them fuck me. Oh, right, he's on our side now. No matter. If he won't tell Albus himself, then I will have to do it. It's up to me now, Padfoot's supposed _best friend_, to destroy what's left of the Marauders. Goddammit! But I have no choice; it's getting dangerous. I've put it off for too long.

Everyone thinks that war only has two sides  yours and the enemy's  but they're wrong. War has no sides; war has too many sides. But the most important part of it all, the part that everyone always forgets, is that space in between.

No Man's Land.

James and Lily are leaving town for Hallowe'en, going to visit Lily's mother, I think. As soon as they get back, I'll tell them about Padfoot, and I'll tell Albus. I have to give it all up, that squalid mattress and blackened window and sharp intakes of breath, that voice in my ear and body against my spine, that cigarette ash in my face and smoky mouth around my cock.

It's over now, I can never go back to him after this, after everyone finds out, but it's the only solution, and it's gone on too long anyway. It's up to me to tell them all, to make sure little Harry is safe, to make sure Sirius never gets a chance to do to James, or Lily, or the baby what he tried to do to Snape all those years ago. I couldn't save anyone back then, back before I had control of myself, back before I knew what I wanted. But now I can; now it's my turn, and I'm not leaving it up to luck this time.

I will save us.

* * *

  
  
**IV.**   


I see the Dark Lord on Wednesdays, when the rest of them are too concerned with themselves to notice I'm gone. Moony is the only one smart enough to figure it out, but he's too busy letting Snape pin him against the wall those nights to notice.

Disgusting perverts.

They don't think anyone knows what they do; they don't know that the rest of us have long since figured out they meet once a week to do those terrible, unnatural things to each other, hidden in dungeons and back alleys and the shadowy places where the shameful go to rot. They think that secrets in wartime are actually safe. They'll pay for that mistake.

Moony used to have a brain, back before he started doing all those things those things with _men. Fucking_, that's what it is. He _fucks_ men. I've never heard of anything so sickening in my life. It's excess, overindulgence in pleasures he has no business indulging in, and it's making him weak. That's what my Master says.

And after all, the old Moony would have known that secrets in wartime can mean only one thing  treason. The old Moony would have been able to smell the suspicion on Padfoot's breath whenever he walked by, would have understood that disappearing at regular intervals without explanation, that _fucking a known agent of the enemy_ could not be interpreted any other way. Why would Padfoot think it's anyone else _but_ Moony, pulling Snape's cock with one hand and passing him Order secrets with the other?

Padfoot, you stupid arsehole. As if sex has anything to do with loyalty.

For Padfoot and Prongs it always did, of course, though Moony knows the difference  he learned it first-hand from the other two, getting passed between them like a puppet. He understands that fucking the person you've betrayed  or vice versa  is like drinking water from the well you pissed in: it's only going to make things worse  things that are already bad enough, because of the fucking and the betraying. At least, that's how I see it.

And anyway, Padfoot's problem is that he can't imagine fucking Snape without a reason; Prongs's problem is that he can't imagine fucking Snape _with_ a reason; and Moony's problem is that he wants to fuck Snape at all. If any of them would look past their own pricks for a minute, the truth would be pretty obvious. Luckily for me, they'll never do that.

Luckily for me, they trust me. Why? Easy. It all comes down to sex and treason for them; if you don't have sex, you can't move on to treason.

And so for once, I have the upper hand. I'll show them all that they should never have made fun of me for not shagging anyone back at school, that they should never have laughed when I wouldn't wank with them in the showers, that they should never have measured us all and yelled the results to the entire Gryffindor common room. And that they should never have thrown in their lot with that bleeding heart, Dumbledore  that old fool who _actually_ thinks that making the world safe for Muggles and half-bloods and faggots and whores and sinners should be a goal of all Wizardkind that dirty, perverted old man who knows exactly what goes on in the bedrooms of the Order members but does nothing to stop it.

Padfoot's the very worst of them. Oh holy Merlin, but I don't know who he thinks he is, talking about Moony's _loyalty_ to the group, to the Marauders, and then turning around and taking Lily to bed when Prongs isn't looking! Why should the rest of us leave any of it up to him, why should we trust him, work with him, fight with him? I won't do it.

And Prongs if he's that blind, he deserves everything that's coming to him. He and his whore of a wife can't be allowed to continue as Dumbledore's trusted leaders! It's shameful, the ruin they'll bring about, for the Order and for all the rest of us. I can't let it happen.

It's too easy, the way they've trusted me to be Secret-Keeper  and it's all because they think that if I won't fuck Lily and I won't fuck Snape, then I'll never tell the Dark Lord where they're hiding the baby. Stupid stupid _stupid_.

I'll show them that the size of their cocks doesn't matter for once, won't make one bit of difference in this war, and who they're off fucking behind a broom shed has nothing to do with the Dark Lord's plans. Oh yes, when He takes power He will annihilate sinners like them, the men whose obsession with their own desires, their own pleasures would bring down the entire Wizarding world if they were allowed free rein. It must not happen. My Master will make sure it never happens.

When I see him on Wednesday, I'll tell Him what they've been doing  the sodomites and the masturbators and the adulterers, with their stained hands and their deviant souls I'll tell Him all their filthy secrets, because someone has to save them; someone has to save the rest of us _from_ them.

I will save us.

-fin-


End file.
